I'd like to say that god is like the end of pi. Can't prove it exists, there's a bunch of other crap before it, and it's irrelevant if it does exist.
it definitely doesnt exist.
in any case, i dont know when the sinai event was supposed to have happened, but it had to be at least several hundred years before exodus was written, which is far to long not to allow such a myth to form. im also wondering what you [boco] do with the documentary hypothesis.
nfq, on a scale of 1-10, just how serious are you?
i'm serious, but i'm not serious about the devil. 666 has nothing to do with the devil, it has to do with astrology. but then again, christians often say that astrology is from the devil (although the bible is full of it).
Bob A wrote:
nfq: because you mentioned that christians are rare in your country.
i see.
Officially speaking, christians are not that rare in the country where nfq comes from. However, as a matter of truth, nfq's assessment is probably quite correct.
As an example, in Finland, around 84% of the country's population are members of the state church (Evangelical Lutheran), but a majority of those only have vague beliefs (such as "maybe there's some God, but Jesus? Give me a break") or are completely agnostic or even atheists. They are members only because of tradition, and to be allowed to have church weddings. Only a tiny fraction of them are true born-again christians by the definitions of Bible itself.
(Ironically, many of those christians choose to not be part of the state church because they see it as corrupted.)
I meant baptism, the event, not baptist, the sect. I was just wondering what you believed the ciriteria for "true born-again christians" were, since you said they were "by the definitions of Bible itself" but in my experience they're set by creeds and churches which are extra-Biblical tradition.
Edit: And, again, to reinforce that parenthetical statement, I'm asking out of curiosity, not as an attack or argument. I don't know many Christians from Europe, and in America there's a lot of cultural baggage associated with the different sects and movements which probably colors my perception.
someone is out there who will like you. take off your mask so they can find you faster.
I support the new Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun.
I meant baptism, the event, not baptist, the sect.
Ah, sorry; I misunderstood.
Boco wrote:
I was just wondering what you believed the ciriteria for "true born-again christians" were, since you said they were "by the definitions of Bible itself" but in my experience they're set by creeds and churches which are extra-Biblical tradition.
As per Romans 10:9-10. I count baptism as part of the "mouth confession" in that passage. It is a symbolic gesture, and a public confession of the faith, signifying the turning point, but what saves is neither the water as a substance nor the act in which it is applied.
Just glancing at that list tells me that it has little real value. Questions regarding God and Atheism are very complicated and rarely work on a "yes/no" or percentage basis. Adding cultural and language barriers to the survey makes things even worse.
Just look at Japan: those results imply that there are more than 80 million people here who are "nonbelievers." But Japanese culture is so intertwined with Buddhist, Shinto and Confucian customs it's impossible to separate them. I'm sure there were a large number of people who, when asked, claimed they didn't believe in God (or Gods). Yet I'll bet most of those people still clap their hands and bow their heads whenever they go to a shrine or temple. And children are raised to clasp their hands (in a gesture that certainly resembles prayer) and give respect to some unseen element before and after every meal.
But this is explicitly not true for the God of the Jews. According to Judaism - and Christianity and Islam - God spoke to an assembled mass of 600,000+ people all at once at Sinai. The entire nation heard him. Judaism isn't founded on "Well, Bob talked to God, so I guess we should do what he says", it's founded on "Hey grandma, you were there, what was it like?". Anyone attempting to create such an event as a hoax even postdated 400 years would run into a lot of people saying "I never heard about any of this,a nd if it happened as you say we should have lots of stories about it passed from generation to generation and we'd be able to get independent confirmation" - and that's not what happened. Instead, the independent confirmation and the stories were present when the text was recorded.
So, there's a historical proof. The Sinai event occured. Whether the being who spoke to the nation was who he said he was, you can argue, but whether he spoke? not so much.
You don't know that... The account does not say that everyone watched God from the base of the volcano. It says that Moses came down from the volcano to tell people what God had said. On the third day of this seance, it says that people could hear God's voice. But on that day, the volcano had erupted and the smoke made it impossible to see anything. So they couldn't see if it was Moses himself who was "answering", or perhaps one of his friends.
It's also possible that someone made up the entire thing. That would have been possible if he was a very influential and powerful person, and people believed the story because they didn't want to sound uneducated. As more people believed in it, there was an even larger pressure to believe it. They couldn't believe in the religions that they had heard from the surrounding people, or they would be murdered. Besides, their new religion told them that they were God's chosen people, whereas the other religions did not. The fact is, that there is no other evidence that the Old Testament events occurred, other than their own account. Many other parts of the Old Testament are also known to be based on things from other religions.
In fact, "Hey grandma, you were there, what was it like?" sounds just like another religion I know of that is an offshoot of another religion and has borrowed on themes from it. Its followers are so dangerous that I unfortunately can't say it's name in public, because they would be after me. Much more dangerous than Islam. You can actually be imprisoned for saying that you can be imprisoned for not being one of them, so I'm not saying that. This religion originated in USA and then spread to England, Germany and the rest of Europe quickly. It is centered about an old prophecy from a book, about a war with another nation lasting for thousands of years. It's mission is to hunt down people and execute or imprison them to get back at them for what the prophecy said that they would do. Perhaps I've said too much?
Baxter wrote:
Err... did you ever consider beliefs and religions were formed/created to explain things that weren't understood? People found themselves on this planet, with no ideas where they came from. There was no scientific method present at the time, not the tools we have now, and whatever else not.
No major religion that I know of, was invented in this way. Judaism was based on other religions and on history, perhaps because of someone who mixed up stories that he had heard and drew inappropriate conclusions, or due to deliberate fraud. Christianity is also based on previous religions. This time, it was deliberate and an attempt to get more converts by making it fit into existing belief systems. It's difficult to say how Islam was made, but it came from something. Old sumerian religion looks like a plain history account. Old norse religion seems like channeled material which had a symbolic meaning but has been corrupted due to the lack of written history. In modern times, religions have been invented. This is always done for fraud or to mock the concept of religious faith and not to explain anything. Sometimes, religions are made to make money or for political reasons.
nfq wrote:
huh? that's gay man :/ you know, i'm actually not even religious, i just had to make some arguments for god because i felt like there wasn't enough christians here. and btw, it was god who made me call you a fool, so don't blame me. you should respond, my answers were intelligent if you just ignore the fool in the beginning.
I don't understand you. You say you are Finnish. And you say you believe in God, just not the Christian version, and you also say that there aren't enough Christians here. What religion do you believe in then? Which religion, apart from Judaism and Christianity, wants more Christians and calls their god "God"?
I don't understand you. You say you are Finnish. And you say you believe in God, just not the Christian version, and you also say that there aren't enough Christians here. What religion do you believe in then? Which religion, apart from Judaism and Christianity, wants more Christians and calls their god "God"?
in the message you quoted, i said that i don't believe in any religion... One doesn't have to believe in a religion to believe in gOd. discussion consists of two opposing sides. if they are not balanced, one side will win and the discussion will end. so i have to defend god so that the discussion will not die.
without the two opposing forces, there would be no electricity, attraction, love, discussion, between things...
We don't discuss for the sake of dicussion. We discuss to win!
Since you don't believe in the Christian god, it would be unwise to defend him. The real God doesn't like traitors and He might become angry at you. To defend a god one doesn't believe in is a mockery against the true real Gods. They may think that you are doing it to make Them sad.
Joined: 3/11/2004
Posts: 1058
Location: Reykjavík, Ísland
Fabian wrote:
nfq,
If you believed you could fly, could you jump off a roof and actually fly?
That isn't really a question, is it?
If you believed you would stop being hungry if you ate food, would you eat food?
If you believed 2 + 2 was 4, would you write down that answer on a math test?
If you believed the ground was solid, would you try to walk on it?
If you believed you would go to heaven if you blew yourself up, would you do it?
If you believed you could fly, would you jump off a cliff?
etc.
People have more beliefs than they probably think. Although I think most people who claim to believe in God, don't really have the same level of belief as described above. Maybe some do, but in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, there has to be some doubt.
nfq wrote:
(...) i said that i don't believe in any religion... One doesn't have to believe in a religion to believe in gOd. discussion consists of two opposing sides. if they are not balanced, one side will win and the discussion will end. so i have to defend god so that the discussion will not die.
without the two opposing forces, there would be no electricity, attraction, love, discussion, between things...
Since God has no definition, it's really pointless to discuss it at all unless we discuss a specific definition of God. Do you have any definition of the God you believe in? Or at least a vague description? Otherwise, it's pointless to even try.
nfq,
If you believed you could fly, could you jump off a roof and actually fly?
That isn't really a question, is it?
Actually that is a question, and the answer to that question is both yes and no depending on where in the universe you are at that given time.
EDIT: "A definition is a statement of the meaning of a term, word or phrase"
Well, that is a valid definition. It unambigously defines the word "God" to mean the being that created everything, if there is such a being. However, usually the word is not defined in that way. Originally, it just means a supernatural being who rules over us.
you're not talking about the real god, you're talking about the christian god. the real god is not a "he".
Needless to say, my God might become upset with you for calling Him Christian and saying that He isn't real. Because I have prayed to Him, He have allowed me to recover from a painful disease in just one day, whereas for a Christian it has been more than a week and the Christian is still very sick. And people who have dedicated their life to insulting Him and His Demons, have had family members miraculously removed and become ill. They have also helped me to learn many new things I didn't know before and made me a better person.
god is often defined as a perfect being. how perfect would god be if his "imperfect" creations could make him sad?
Now you're calling him "him". What I said was that They might think that you are defending their enemies with the intent to make Them sad. But, no one can be held at fault for rightly becoming sad. Furthermore, you are using two conflicting definitions of "God".
